


take your time (coming home)

by elusetta



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Trauma, loosely plot-related, not all bad i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elusetta/pseuds/elusetta
Summary: She’s killed before. She’s been injured before. But nothing could compare to this. It’s like the sword is sliding between her ribs just as it slides between his. It’s like her heart rips open in time with the brutal rhythm of his coming to a stop.When he finally falls, she can’t comprehend it. The raging cacophony of the battle turns to white noise in her ears. Her brother— Her protector—Reinhardt is dead.--In which Reinhardt dies, Olwen grieves, and love heals all wounds (though not completely.)
Relationships: Olwen & Nanna, Olwen & Reinhardt (Fire Emblem), Olwen & Ronan, Olwen/Mareeta
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	take your time (coming home)

**Author's Note:**

> i have never played thracia 776 OR genealogy of the holy war, so what little plot is in here might be wrong. anyway i love olwen and you should too! i will die on the olwen/mareeta hill but that is not going to be all that relevant until part 2
> 
> for the purposes of the geneva convention, most of the playable characters are adults in this, except for nanna and leif because they are Children and must be protected

The prince of Leonster, the boy that Olwen has pledged her loyalty to, did not have any other choice.

Tactically speaking, his decision was sound. She can’t question it. Her own time in the Friege army didn’t grant her more experience than him; Kempf always kept her at arm’s length, issuing orders that would keep her busy without making her a threat. She’s no general. Now, she’s nothing more than a defector. Just another insect to be stomped out by the cavalry of the army she once served.

She’s nothing like her brother. He’s so much more. He was her idol, her dearest friend, the last remaining person with the same blood. He’d protected her. For a long time, there had been just a few truths, written like divine edicts: that Olwen was small, that the world was cruel, and that Reinhardt stood between them.

Reinhardt had handed her the Blessed Sword knowing damn well what she would have to do with it. She had no other choice. In her haste to get to him, to try one last desperate time to bring him back, she has unwittingly become the only one of Leif’s troops who is anywhere near him. Olwen knows she is in this alone.

He loves Olwen. Of course he does. But the fact of the matter is that Reinhardt will always be loyal to Ishtar first; that is his great flaw. He’d never said as much, but Olwen had seen it in his eyes when he looked at her, that fatal adoration. Before this war had broken all those childlike dreams from her, she had hoped one day to call Ishtar her sister.

How fitting it was that his fatal mistake was _love._ How terrible it was. Her brother, the kindest man in the world, destroyed by his virtue. By his own happiness.

 _I’m proud of you._ The words tear her apart. His last words to her and of _course_ they were of love. He had never held anything else for her. No anger. No resentment. Not even annoyance, as easily as it comes to siblings.

She can barely speak. It hurts. There are thorns tangled in her lungs, biting into her throat, the freezing rain slashing against her uniform. Even though it feels like it weighs more than everything that pains her, she raises the sword. “I’m sorry,” she says, the sound of the battlefield drowning it out.

Reinhardt hears her.

And when the blade sinks deep, deep into his chest, as the blood wells up from the wound, as she watches his kind eyes slowly dull to the world, Reinhardt just smiles with all the strength he has left. Like he’s telling her it’s not her fault.

She’s killed before. She’s been injured before. But nothing could compare to this. It’s like the sword is sliding between her ribs just as it slides between his. It’s like her heart rips open in time with the brutal rhythm of his coming to a stop. Pulling the sword back is like ripping out an eye.

A moment. Dead silence. He shivers. His hands go slack on his reins.

When he finally falls, she can’t comprehend it. The raging cacophony of the battle turns to white noise in her ears. Her brother— Her protector— 

Reinhardt is dead.

The finality of it all hits her at once, and Olwen is frozen in time. 

Everything she had, she has now lost. Fred lies in a grave outside the city of Tahra, unmarked but for the flowers she had placed upon it. Reinhardt lies here. Reinhardt lies in the dirt, eyes blank, a thick fissure of blood dripping from his mouth into the earth.

A cry of loss echoes through enemy lines, an indignant mage raises his tome, and Olwen feels the force of the wind spell before it hits. Her horse rears in panic. The condensed blade of wind shears through the poor animal’s chest, and she barely manages to scramble away through the bloody mire of the battlefield before its body slams into the ground where she had landed.

Reinhardt’s corpse is right next to her. She turns to face him— the body that used to be him. Her hands are quickly turning numb. Let her lay here to die, she wants to whisper. Let no one find her until they are both rotted to bones, until her treason is worn away by time and her name is just another unremembered casualty of the Liberation War.

No. That’s too kind a fate for her. Kinslayers were the worst of people, she’d often been told. The fact that they were on opposing forces in a war that went so far beyond them… that doesn’t change anything. Olwen deserves worse than death.

Something white arcs through the blackened sky above her. “Hold on!” It’s a shriek, it _has_ to be, but everything blends into the same static, her deed repeating itself over and over, ingrained into every sense. The sound of the blade. The metallic taste in her mouth. The sickening thud of his body crumpling to the ground.

There’s a cry, a whinny, a slender arm that wraps around her shoulders and pulls her aloft, into the sky on the back of a pegasus, and then a voice that she can only understand bits and pieces of. “Good… down… okay? Lady Nanna…”

_I’m proud of you._

Olwen’s vision goes black.

* * *

When she comes to, she’s still alone, but there is a man at her bedside, watching her with dark red eyes that betray just a hint of concern. Olwen blinks and sits up. She’s not wounded— at least, she doesn’t think so. But she can’t stop seeing it. She can’t stop feeling him die.

The man quietly places his hand on her arm, and she’s grounded for a moment, looking up at her visitor. She knows his name somewhere in her broken thoughts, but she can’t speak it. She can’t say anything. Her mouth is filled with the thick, bitter taste of grief, the vicious burn of shame. “We could have lost you there, had it not been for Karin,” he says gently. “Are you hurt?”

“I… I killed him,” she says like it’s any kind of response, because it’s the only thing that’s in her head, repeating and repeating until it’s all she is.

He examines her for a moment, and when a girl with golden hair comes through the door, staff in hand and her white robe stained with drying blood, he gives her a quiet look. “I don’t think there’s anything that can be done. Not by healing magic. She’s in shock, and badly traumatized.”

They should let her die. She’s left men behind for less. She’s been forced to, under the orders of her superiors. She’s of no use to them like this. She cannot even think beyond the ever-present wishes: _let me die, let me rot in the ground next to him._

The girl just looks at her, sits beside her cot, and squeezes Olwen’s hand. “Then I won’t use magic.”

Olwen looks at her in disbelief. She doesn’t even know this girl— she thinks they might have met, one moment or another on the battlefield, but it’s hardly what she’d call acquaintance— and yet here she is, sacrificing her time to hold the hand of a murderer for no ulterior purpose.

The man nods and is gone in an instant. Olwen opens her mouth, but she can’t say anything.

“You’ll be okay.” The girl’s smile is bright but not blinding, like sunlight through a curtained window. “It’s going to be okay.”

She has no idea what she’s talking about.

Once, when she was a child, she got so sick that she couldn’t walk, and Reinhardt had to carry her. It was before they found the army, before he found Ishtar, when all they had was each other. She remembers him holding her, not much bigger but seeming like a hero through her fevered child’s eyes. She remembers those words in his gentle voice. _You’re okay. It’s going to be okay._

_I’m proud of you._

Olwen’s chest heaves with a sob, and the girl strokes her hair as she buries her head in her hands, weeping harder than the rain had come down on the battlefield.

When her tears are shed and she’s left with just a headache and a ruined heart, her mind clears for long enough to request a quill and paper. The letter she pens isn’t long. It can’t be, not while she is numb and empty like she is. She wonders briefly if she’ll ever have the capacity for words again, if this broken thing inside her, this shattered glass of guilt and grief, will ever fade enough for her to speak.

_Lady Ishtar,_

_Reinhardt is dead. I killed him. He loved you to the last._

She doesn’t sign the letter. Ishtar knows her handwriting, even as shaky as it is; Ishtar watched her learn to write. She just gives the letter to the girl at her bedside and softly asks that someone send it to Ishtar of Friege.

* * *

War waits for no loss. She gets a new horse, a small, delicate thing compared to the destrier she’d lost, and the army marches forward. 

It’s good to have a reminder of what she’s living for. The child hunts, the Loptous Sect, the looming force of Raydrik: they are opponents worth fighting. The awful thing about it is that no matter how evil the man who gives the order is, the people who carry it out are, for the most part, ordinary. War takes good men and chains them to terrible deeds. All men have chains, after all. Loyalty, or poverty, or pride. Reinhardt’s was love. Olwen’s is justice.

It doesn’t matter what you’re fighting for. When you raise your blade in defense of tyranny, either your soul dies or you do. When you raise your blade against it, you kill people with lives, with motivations, with people who will mourn them.

In the end, there are no good men left. In the end, there’s blood on every hand and death on every conscience.

She had thought she was doing the right thing, joining the Liberation Army. She _did_ do the right thing. She is fighting against the worst that humanity could offer. But still, the march slogs on, her enemies die screaming, and their spouses and siblings and parents and children weep for them in darkened homes she’ll never have to see.

The girl from the medical ward rides next to Olwen as if she’s afraid that she’ll break into pieces if left unattended. What’s left of Olwen, what’s not bruised and cracked and rotting, admires her for it. Nanna; that’s her name. _Lady_ Nanna. Though there’s really no such thing as nobility, not during wartime— not in the traditional sense, at least.

Nanna doesn’t try to talk to her, though, and Olwen is grateful for that. She can hardly speak, let alone make conversation. But she doesn’t leave her side regardless. 

The company stops to camp for the night. Around the communal stew pot, people break bread with their companions, and Nanna still doesn’t leave Olwen alone, quietly eating beside her, not commenting on the fact that Olwen only pokes at a hunk of bread without really eating anything. Slowly— hesitantly, like Olwen is something wounded— others approach the two of them. There’s another mage, a few years younger than Olwen with the sharp look of a boy who’s seen war; two archers, one taller than the rest of the group but also quieter, and the other small, clothed in simple village garb with a vibrant orange headband; a girl with one earring and a spark in her eye; and the young prince himself, Leif of Leonster.

No one comments on Olwen being there. She just is. It’s a small mercy.

She comes to know their names as the night goes on. The mage is Asbel, and he speaks with the sort of passionate conviction that could topple governments. The tall archer, quiet and polite, is Ronan, and his smaller, more spirited friend is Tanya, who spends most of the night getting pelted with scraps of bread that she fails to catch in her mouth despite the one-earring girl— Mareeta— doing her best to aim. Leif and Nanna settle beside each other with the easy companionship of people who have known one another for their whole lives.

Olwen stays there, silent, the hole in her chest widening steadily. Every smile, every laugh turns into his, and even when they don’t, it hurts to know she’ll never have this kind of friendship. She’s never been one for making friends. Her only friend was Fred, and he was seven years older than her, not to mention duty-bound. All she had left in the world was Reinhardt, and she killed him.

The sun sets. Olwen doesn’t move. She doesn’t think she can. She wouldn’t be able to sleep in the most comfortable of beds, let alone a hard bedroll in a cold tent, so there’s no point in moving anyway. Everyone else departs, even Nanna, who gives her a soft smile before she goes.

Or at least, she thinks everyone else has departed, before someone melts out of the shadows and sits down next to her.

Olwen flinches at the sudden presence, and the girl— Mareeta— smiles ruefully. “I’m sorry about that,” she says, clearly not expecting a response. “It’s an effect of being possessed. That’s what Salem told me.”

The word brings out a question Olwen can’t resist, but even she’s surprised when she says it. She hasn’t spoken all day. “Possessed?”

Mareeta doesn’t even pause at the broken silence, instead patting the sword at her hip, as if that explains anything at all. “It’s a terrible story.” True to her word, there’s something Olwen recognizes, something angry and hurt, in Mareeta’s expression, and she wants to reach out and touch her if only so those broken things inside them can see each other for a moment.

Once again, Olwen surprises herself. “It’s war,” she says quietly, her hands knitting together in her lap. “Every story is a tragedy.”

Mareeta nods, but looks toward the horizon, where the rising moon begins to paint the night in silver-blue watercolor. Nanna and Leif walk together there, arm in arm. “That’s true, but…” When Olwen looks at her, she’s smiling fondly. Olwen knows that smile. It’s the smile Reinhardt had when she’d called her few first wisps of lightning to her hand.

_I’m proud of you._

“There are things worth tragedy,” Mareeta finishes after a pause.

Olwen looks away, a knot forming in her throat.

All she’s fighting for is justice for people that she’s never met. Justice is an abstract, a concept, unblemished by time, inhuman and cold and beautiful like the stars. She’s never questioned her devotion to it before, but now, now that she’s so deeply alone that it leaves her hollow, there is nothing to do but question.

Was justice worth her brother’s life?

Mareeta gets up from the log they’re sitting on, disappearing into the night like she’s part of it, and Olwen readily accepts the solitude. It’s not like she deserves company. It’s not like she even particularly wants it. She’s content to sit with her ribs like curved daggers, tearing her apart from the inside.

But then Mareeta comes back, two cloaks in her hands, and she drapes one over Olwen before donning the other. “It’s getting cold out,” she says when Olwen looks at her in question. “Once, when we were kids, Leif went out with no cloak to try to rescue this kitten from a fence that had fallen down, and it was the middle of winter— and it gets _cold_ in Fiana during the winter. He didn’t care, though. He heard that kitten mewling and nothing could stop him from coming to its rescue.” She laughs lightly. “He got such a chill. Coughed and sneezed for three days straight, and of course he didn’t regret a thing, but Finn was worried sick.”

Despite herself, Olwen smiles weakly. “What about the kitten?”

Mareeta sighs wistfully, looking up at the emerging stars. “Little Blue? He’s still around. The best mouser Fiana’s ever seen. I miss him,” she admits. “Leif’s his favorite out of all of us. I think he knows who he owes his life to.”

Olwen thinks of the feral cats prowling the streets of Thrudstad, of the fat old tabby who spent whole days curled up in the sunspot of the library she studied in. She thinks of a little boy, risking his health for the sake of something so tiny and defenseless.

Some things are worth a little tragedy. It doesn’t pull the aching shards out of her chest, but it soothes a few of them at the edges, and when she pulls the cloak over herself, it’s warmer than she expected.

* * *

The terrain of northern Thracia is unforgiving, and the Liberation Army doesn’t have enough supplies to go around. The only people they can afford to give steeds to are the ones who are equipped to use them in combat. Olwen is one of those who can. It’s a simple solution, and Leif happens upon it quickly: he has to pair them up, to overwork the horses in exchange for quicker, more efficient movement.

Some of the horses have three people on them. Dean and Eda both take as many as their dragons can carry, though the added weight forces the beasts to plod along like ordinary mounts, bereft of the ability to fly. Olwen only has one passenger, and she’s not sure if it’s because of her somewhat diminished ability to socialize or the small size of her mount, but it’s a relief nonetheless. She’s also relieved that it’s Mareeta.

It’s a long trek. She’s not entirely sure where they’re going. Ever since the battle, she’s just walked along with the others, fought when she’s told to fight, stopped when she’s told to stop. She hates it, but it’s all she can do. Her early days in the Friege army taught her to follow orders. It’s comfortable to follow, even if she doesn’t like it very much. It’s easier than leading.

She and Nanna ride in step with each other. Tanya clings to Nanna’s waist, clearly not used to riding, yelping at Nanna whenever the horse trips and demanding she slow down, while Mareeta holds back laughter at her, easily keeping up with Olwen’s horse. It’s— strange, being in the midst of these people who know each other so well. It’s like watching Reinhardt and Ishtar together, so clearly bonded, so clearly belonging to each other. The pinching feeling in her chest she’d felt back then is duller, but still there. She’ll never have this.

It hurts to listen to their conversation, but there’s not much else to do, and she’d take any distraction from the ever-repeating, brutal thought of _your brother is dead and you killed him_ that keeps her from sleeping at night. It’s there, in the background. It will always be there, wound around her like a poisonous snake, ready to strike at any instant. But this is war, and she’s been trusted with the safety of a passenger, and so she cannot dwell on it for long, not right now.

“Listen,” Mareeta is saying, waving her finger at Tanya and Nanna, “I’m saying it. Your horse is the pining horse.”

“I am not _pining,_ ” Nanna and Tanya say at the same time.

Mareeta raises an eyebrow and Tanya snorts. “I don’t even _like_ Osian, okay?”

“Tanya,” Nanna says, shaking her head in resignation. “This again?”

“Like you’re any better. Leif this, Leif that. Mar’s the lucky one,” Tanya retorts. “ _She_ gets to skip out on all of this.”

Mareeta straightens, giving Tanya a hard look. “I don’t avoid pining because I only like women, I avoid pining because I’m not useless and actually _tell_ someone when I like her.”

Tanya giggles. “Like you told _Rosia_?”

Mareeta turns bright red, and Tanya crows in delight. “I was _nine!_ It’s been _ten years_ ! Are you ever going to let me live that down?” She sighs deeply when Nanna and Tanya just keep grinning at her. “You’re both ridiculous, do you know that? Mocking _me_ over a crush I had years ago when _you_ both lament over your completely attainable heartthrobs daily.” Another horse comes up to them, and a tall, powerful man who doesn’t look much older than the lot of them waves. Mareeta gets a wicked look and calls out to him. “Hey, Osian, Tanya’s been in—”

She’s cut off by a wild shriek, Tanya dislodging herself from Nanna’s back to try and fling herself at Mareeta only to pull back when she seems to remember that she’s on a horse. “You’re a terrible, _horrible_ friend,” she says instead, her eyes on fire. “And I can’t stand you.”

Olwen can’t help it. She laughs, just a low, soft, bubbling laugh that feels strange against her mutilated heart.

Mareeta’s the only one who catches it, and she doesn’t linger. Olwen’s glad for that. She just looks knowingly at Tanya. “He’s in love with you too, you know. He’s been in love with you since he knew what love meant.”

Tanya huffs, but it turns into a soft sigh. “And how do you know that, Mar?”

“You think Osian could hide his feelings for a split second? When he was thirteen, I heard him ask Mother when he could get married to you, and she told him that he had to be able to knock the head clean off a training dummy with just a handaxe before he was ready to take a wife. She gave him the Vouge to practice with. Why do you think he loves that axe so much?”

“Doesn’t mean he was serious,” Tanya replies, her eyes a little misty.

Nanna shakes her head. “Maybe he wasn’t then, but he is now. He looks at you like you made the stars.”

Olwen looks forward to where Osian rides. A fool could see it with their eyes closed. He glances back for just a moment, and his eyes immediately find Tanya, his expression briefly turning into a smile far too soft for a man as large as he is. It’s the smile of someone desperately in love, the smile Reinhardt gave to Ishtar when no one was looking.

She thinks of making the stars and an axe that means devotion, of a love harbored and ready to sail.

Olwen looks to Tanya, not quite meeting her eyes. Her voice is only just loud enough to be heard over the hoofbeats of their mounts. “Anyone could see it. You just have to look.”

Nanna startles at her words, eyes widening, and a brilliant smile comes across her face. “See, Tanya?”

“That’s not fair,” Tanya says, almost like she believes it. Still, she rather obviously looks at Osian, and when their eyes meet she turns bright red, burying her face in Nanna’s cape. “Ugh!”

Nanna laughs.

Eventually, the sun begins to make its way downward, and the horses are forced to stop for the night. They’re overtaxed, after all, and can’t go on for as long as they could with just one rider, but the army has made good time regardless. Olwen takes a few minutes to look over her horse, laying a hand on her cheek as if to thank her.

A few minutes turns into a while more. Reinhardt always told her that horses were friends as well as weapons, and should be treated as such, so she grooms the mare’s coat, brushing away the dirt and mud of the day’s journey, before cleaning her hooves. It’s a well-practiced routine. By the time she’s done, her horse looking far less worn than she had when she’d begun, Olwen has the rare feeling that she’s done something good. Her mare seems to agree, nudging against her with her velvety nose. 

Olwen smiles.

The approach of another person behind her doesn’t startle her. It’s shy, tentative, and when she turns around sharply to face them, they jump slightly. Golden hair glows in the vibrant light of the sunset, and Nanna’s big, green eyes are apologetic.

“...Lady Nanna.” She’s earned a greeting, at least. Olwen begins to dip into a curtsy, because she has been well-taught to respect the nobility just as her brother did, but Nanna stops her, shaking her head.

“Please, it’s just Nanna.” Olwen nods wordlessly, and Nanna’s attention turns to the mare. “She’s a beautiful horse. What’s her name?”

“I don’t…” Her old destrier hadn’t been named, and she hadn’t thought to name this one either. The bond between rider and horse was important, but it wasn’t so important that she wouldn’t have had her authority undermined if her soldiers had heard her calling the animal some foolish name. “She doesn’t have one.”

Nanna places her hand, small and calloused from the use of her staff, on the horse’s cheek, and the horse chuffs pleasantly. “Mine is named Snowdrop,” she remarks.

A long, pained silence. Nanna has been kind, but Olwen can’t repay that. It’s still a fight to get a word out now and then; a laugh and a few responses are the exception. Finally, she forces out, “You don’t have to do this. I don’t… I don’t need your pity.”

Nanna sighs, and her posture wilts enough to make Olwen feel terrible about herself. “I don’t pity you, Olwen.”

If her feelings weren’t a cataclysm of self-hate and anguish and neverending regret, Olwen might have felt a spark of annoyance at that. She is no one right now. She is nothing. People have nothing to give her but pity; she certainly can’t be offered friendship. But Nanna doesn’t seem the type to lie. Her words die before they can ever truly form, and the silence stretches on.

“A few months ago, we lost Eyvel,” Nanna says out of nowhere. Olwen doesn’t even know the name Eyvel, but she senses its importance; Nanna lingers on it. “Mareeta’s mother. She was everyone’s mother, really. The only mother most of us ever knew. She protected our whole village, and then Raydrik—” She lets out a choked noise, and Olwen’s heart feels like it’s being crushed. Nanna wipes her eyes, doing little to stem her tears. “I w-was in the arena with her before Leif got to us. I was so scared and she n-never let them even get close to me… She should have won that fight, but Raydrik…” She lets out a shaky breath, obviously holding back unrestrained sobbing. Olwen’s not entirely sure what to do. “M-my point is that everyone… We’ve all lost so much. And I know I can’t heal you, because your wounds aren’t physical, but I… I just want to help. I just want to stop this war from taking everything from everyone.” She rests her head on the mare’s neck, trying to calm herself, and Olwen just stares.

“My deputy is dead because I couldn’t protect him,” she says finally. “And I killed my brother.” Saying it feels like spitting out broken teeth. “You’re a good person, Nanna. Give your comfort to the innocent. Don’t waste your time on me.” Her voice is quiet, low, monotonous.

Nanna just looks at her. Her expression is hardened now, determined. “I killed seven people during the last battle.”

The words send a shock through the air, even though they shouldn’t. War makes murderers of everyone, but Nanna— Nanna seems so gentle _,_ so pure, so kind. To imagine her, bloodstained and battle-weary, is a thought that burns with tragic violation.

When she’s gotten over the pain of saying the name of her crime, Nanna matches eyes with Olwen, and even though Nanna is shorter than her, Olwen is slightly rattled by the pure conviction in her. “There’s no such thing as an innocent. I’m not comforting you because I think you’re innocent.”

“Then— why—” The words are tight, biting at her; they don’t like coming out.

“Because you’ve suffered,” Nanna says like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Because you deserve not to hurt.”

Olwen stares at her, astonished. Nanna turns pink under the scrutiny, and pulls away from the horse, patting its nose one more time. “Um… I think you should call her Chestnut,” she says in Olwen’s general direction, smiling hesitantly before walking away.

Chestnut whickers and nudges into Olwen's shoulder. Olwen watches Nanna go, the last vestiges of sun clinging to her like she's something divine. 

Even those hands have been turned crimson. Even those hands have killed.

At least she's in good company.

* * *

No one can stay awake forever. After almost three full weeks of hazy consciousness, broken only by the times she passes out for a few minutes, Olwen finally gives in. One moment she’s sitting with Ronan in the quiet of the night, keeping watch, and the next she’s back on the battlefield, watching Reinhardt die. 

This time, they’re alone, and the thunder around them is the only sound she can hear other than his gasping for breath, the gurgle of the blood rising in his chest, drowning him. She can feel the blade in her lungs, too. She can taste the blood, because their blood is the same.

She doesn’t get the chance to stop herself. She’s already there. The blow is already struck. He is already gone.

“I’m sorry,” she manages to choke over the rising tide of scarlet that’s dooming her like she doomed him. “I’m so sorry.”

Even now Reinhardt doesn’t have any cruel words for her. She almost wishes he did— that he would blame her for this the way she blames herself. His white gloves are bloody, and when he reaches up to touch her cheek, the blood stains her skin. Even though he’s on the cusp of death, even though her vision is going blurry and she can feel the way he cannot breathe, he says it like he’s still alive: “I’m so proud of you.”

His body dissolves in her hands, and Olwen gasps for air, for breath, even though she wishes she could die here, her body making one last attempt at survival before the blood suffocates her—

There’s a hand on her shoulder and she recoils violently, wheezing for breath, her heart slamming against her ribs, her eyes wild with panic. Thunder crackles along her wrists. She’s shaking uncontrollably. She’s not drowning but it feels like she is. She can’t get enough breath. 

_Focus._ A gentle voice, distorted by the storm crashing through her. A rough hand rests on hers, and she blinks. The world is spinning.

“Do you know where you are?” She still can’t quite make out who’s talking to her, but her heavy, racing pulse stutters for a moment. “Breathe in.”

She takes as much of a breath as she can manage. It’s sharp and cold and there’s the scent of herbs, of soil, of woodsmoke.

She’s not on the battlefield. The moon glares down at her. Her fingers are numb.

“There,” her companion says, squeezing her hand with very little force, like he’s afraid she’ll break. “There you are. It’s okay.”

When she tries to say something, all that comes out of her is a strangled sob. He presses something into her hand, something hot. Steam tickles her face, pulling her by inches back into reality.

It’s a cup of tea. She stares at it blankly. His name comes back to her. “...Ronan.”

His smile is tight, his eyes still worried. “Are you well? Did you have a nightmare?”

She shakes her head, because ‘nightmare’ is a word to describe monsters under the bed; nightmares can be healed by a kind word and an embrace. This wound will never heal. She’s going to have to learn to live with this vast, festering monstrosity inside of her.

The renewed guilt isn’t even the worst part. For a moment, even if he was dying, she had him back.

She’ll never see his eyes again. She’ll never see his smile or hear his laugh or get to poke fun at him again; she’ll never learn the way he always knew how to put just enough honey in her tea. She lifts the cup Ronan gave her to her mouth and takes a sip.

It’s bitter. Her eyes glaze over, and before she can even realize that she’s gripping it too hard, the cup shatters with a tiny thunderclap. “I’m… sorry,” she whispers, a swell of shame threatening to capsize what little stability she’s regained.

“It’s alright,” he says. His voice is genuine, earnest despite its hush. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Her throat knots, her eyes heating up, and she barely even has the chance to push it back before she’s crying silently.

Ronan doesn’t know her. They’ve taken watch with each other a few times, but they are both quiet people, not particularly given to making friends. Yet still, when she begins to cry, he eases her into a gentle embrace— loose enough that she could escape if she wanted to— and lets her weep into his warm jacket that smells of pine and the faint honey of beeswax.

Despite the horror of what comes when she closes her eyes, she’s beyond exhausted, and she can’t fight anymore. She slips away in Ronan’s arms and he doesn’t wake her until the sun is well past risen, when the army stirs and wakes.

It’s a kindness she feels guilty for receiving. She vows to pay it back.

* * *

On the eve of the battle to seize Castle Manster, a storm breaks over their makeshift lines.

It’s not so dramatic a storm that it blows away their tents, but it’s enough to set morale back, which, given the fact that one of the most important battles of the campaign happens in the morning, is not a good thing. The Liberation Army is a tough group of people, but at the end of the day they’re still an army. It would dampen anyone’s spirits to be pelted with rain the day before you march to what could be your death.

Olwen doesn’t have a designated tent, and she’s fine with that. When she can’t stave off sleep any longer, she sleeps outside, her cloak the only protection she needs against the cold.

She can stand a little bit of rain. She didn’t plan on sleeping inside, not even when thunder broke across the sky. A rough agony coils in her stomach at the sound, cutting into her when lightning flashes in the distance. Thunder is hers, but it was Reinhardt’s first. 

At least in the storm no one will come looking for her.

Well, that’s what she _thinks,_ anyway, because within ten minutes of the skies opening and letting loose, she hears a distinct voice behind her. “ _Olwen!_ ”

Her hand flies to her Dire Thunder on instinct, but when she turns around, the sight of Mareeta, hair stuck to her skin from the torrential rain, clothes nearly soaked through, is distinctly unthreatening. There’s something akin to relief on her face. Has she been _actively looking_ for her? No, that doesn’t make sense. Mareeta barely knows her.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Mareeta says, slightly out of breath, immediately throwing sense to the wind. “What in Naga’s name are you doing out in this? You’ll catch your death!”

Olwen smiles uncertainly, thrown off by the sudden understanding that this girl cared enough about her to go out in the storm. “You sound like an old woman.” It’s the most she’s spoken in days. Something about Mareeta makes it easier for words to form.

Mareeta does laugh once, but she looks more anxious than amused. “Forgive me for being worried.” Thunder echoes in the distance, and Olwen tenses. Mareeta takes her hand. “Come to my tent. No one else is there.”

The thunder just keeps echoing in her mind. Olwen follows her without a second thought. It’s not until they’re in the relative safety of the cloth tent that she realizes how odd this is— most, if not all, of the troops are paired with one another. Even the prince himself shares his tent with Nanna and Asbel.

She can’t stop the question before it comes out. “Why are you alone?”

Mareeta pauses, her hand coming to the hilt of her sword, thumb stroking over the intricate detail of the pommel. That familiar pain flashes over her face. “I… I’m not exactly trustworthy.” She glances at her hands, well-muscled from swordplay. “It’s a terrible story,” she repeats like the first time they’d spoken. Olwen gets the sense that she says that phrase whenever someone brings it up.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Olwen offers. It’s the first moment where speaking what happened does not seem like it will tear her to shreds.

Mareeta’s head snaps up, and for the first time her outer veil of strength and playfulness, that protector’s shield, seems to fall away. She looks insecure— vulnerable in a way Olwen knows. Her eyelashes are dark, her brows drawn together. Beads of water drip down her forehead from her soaked bangs, and as if to repay the trust she is giving her, Olwen reaches out and gently brushes them away. Her touch lingers, an affirmation. No matter what Mareeta says, Olwen will not hate her for it.

The words bite back at her, snarling. _Murderer. Kinslayer._ It’s not like she has the moral standing to hate anyone, when she’s done what she’s done.

When Olwen’s hand falls away, Mareeta catches it. She’s not sure if it’s a gesture of affection, or of trust, or just a way to keep herself steady, but either way, their fingers lace together.

“I’m sure you’ve already heard about what happened to Eyvel.” Mareeta can’t look at her. Her voice is strained. “What you probably don’t know is that… it was my fault. Raydrik captured me and gave me a cursed sword, and I wasn’t strong enough to resist it. So it… possessed me. And when he brought out my mother, and Nanna with her, I didn’t recognize either of them— I didn’t— I tried to kill them. I nearly succeeded _._ ” Her voice is shaking.

Olwen can’t help but try to offer comfort, her other hand coming to Mareeta’s upper arm tentatively. “You cannot blame yourself for that.”

Mareeta shakes her head weakly. “Maybe not. But because of me, or that sword, or both, Mother was turned to stone. And everyone tries to pretend that I’m just the same as I was before it, but I see the way they look at me. Like I’ll turn at any moment. When Nanna first saw me, when I was healed, she… she screamed. She still watches me like that sometimes. Like I’m something dangerous.” Lowering her head, her whole body shudders. “I _am_ something dangerous. She’s right to be afraid.”

There is no absolution Olwen can give her, no amnesty between two killers. They are the same monster, the same withered affliction, twisted into two different shapes— yet still, to give Mareeta the conviction Olwen has given herself is to go against an inexorable truth of her character. To ascribe that guilt would be to look at Mareeta and fail to see the protector in her. Olwen could have called her a murderer, a monster, if only she were abstract, if she hadn’t heard the way she laughs, seen the smile in her eyes when she watches those she cares for.

It brings up a feeling that she can’t dwell on for long, so she summons her words from the darkest part of her. “I had a brother,” she says, voice firm as she can make it. “He is the only kin I ever knew. His name was Reinhardt.”

The shock of realization stutters on Mareeta’s face for a moment. The only way she has heard his name was as an enemy, a threat and then a victory.

“He was a good man who loved the wrong person,” Olwen continues. Her throat tightens around the admission, but she forces her voice to remain steady. “He loved Ishtar, who loved Julius. And he and I served Friege together. All I wanted was to match him, but then… Kempf imprisoned me and I discovered what I truly served. A war of slaughtered innocents and children stolen from their homes.” If she closes her eyes, she’ll see the darkness of that prison cell again, the fear in the childrens’ eyes, so she keeps them open and trained on Mareeta. “And so I defected. I left my life’s work and my brother in one stroke. He loved Ishtar more than he loved justice, and I loved justice more than I loved him.” She blinks away a film of wetness, and it rolls down her cheeks, her face heating with the exertion of continuing to speak. “...We met on the battlefield. I had no other choice.”

_I’m proud of you._

It comes before her again, the look of his forgiveness, the perdition of his loss. Her legs give out under her. Mareeta’s arms come to support her before she can hit the ground, pulling her forward, and she ends up with her face against her companion’s throat, steady arms wrapped around her, as if she is not a villain, not an irredeemable beast who martyred her own brother.

With a broken voice, she whispers her confession. “I killed him.”

Silence reigns.

Olwen would pull away, if she could; if she could, she’d disappear, claw open the ground and beg it to take her back to whatever comes before birth. What she’s just stated is enough to make anyone push her away. Even the most forgiving person would be hard-pressed to extend their hand to someone like her. It’s pitiful that she still stands like this.

She realizes, belatedly, that her hands are upon Mareeta’s shoulders— she clings to her desperately, as though begging for forgiveness. But Mareeta isn’t letting her go. She isn’t pushing her away. She just pulls her closer, hands brushing through Olwen’s hair gentle and reassuring, letting them both sink to the floor.

There is no absolution between killers, but there is empathy.

* * *

The siege of Manster Castle comes, and Olwen repays a debt.

The sky is clear. The distant forms of Dean, Eda and Karin sweep through the meager cover of clouds before reporting their reconnaissance back to Leif and August, and when the young prince dictates the positions of his troops, he does so with a grim determination that does not match a boy of his age.

All of his tactics are sound. He is impressive that way, though it is a hollow achievement, to be capable of such efficient war. It stings with the scent of loss.

No tactics are perfect. There will always be mistakes.

Casualties will be taken, regardless of strategy. It is only a matter of how many.

Olwen isn’t paying attention to the grand scheme of things when she rides into the fray. She focuses on channeling Dire Thunder through herself, letting it light her up like its primal energy desires to. This, at least, is familiar. This is as close to home ( _to him_ ) as she can get, magic barreling through her with the violence of the grandest storms. She knows, distantly, that she serves a purpose.

She knows her attributes. Reinhardt had called her the Storm of Friege for the way she could unleash devastation, but she didn’t wear thick armor— she wasn’t made to take the enemy head-on.

She’s safely on Chestnut’s back, tome in her hand and sword in her belt. She is exactly where she should be.

Then she hears a cry— hears a bowstring snap— sees Ronan backed into a corner, warrior bearing down on him, no time to re-string his bow— and throws all thoughts of tactics to the wind. Ronan is _good._ He does not die here.

Her heels dig into Chestnut’s sides. Thunder clusters around her hands as she takes off across the field, holding onto her horse with all her strength. The man in front of Ronan raises his blade, and she cannot take the time to attack, cannot do anything but leap off of Chestnut and take the blow that’s meant for him.

It happens in an instant. It happens in a thousand years. The sword is sharp, curved at the end, slowly coming toward her, inevitable as death. Olwen twists. The blade pierces her cape, then her leather pauldron, and finally— it carves through her, nicks across her collarbone and then digs into the soft meat of her shoulder, cutting down her side and into her stomach.

It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it should. Is this Naga’s way of telling her that she’s doing the right thing? 

The soldier stumbles, crashing into her with his armored knee, and all the breath in her goes out at once when she hits the ground. The misplaced pain comes back with a vengeance. Her vision goes white, and then black, her ears ringing, mouth filling with the taste of blood.

Olwen understands that she is going to die.

There are flashes. Bitter, _bitter_ pain. The sound of a man choking. Green hair, illuminated by the blinding light of a staff. An arm under her. Voices. The onset of blindness, slow and then swift.

Her eyes open, or they want to. She can’t see. There’s something thick and swollen in the line the blade cut into her, and a steady ache throbs in her chest. Every part of her body hurts.

A hand comes to rest on her cheek, and Olwen leans into it on instinct. It strokes her steadily, brushing through her hair, and Nanna murmurs to her, “Rest.”

That’s all it takes. Her mind stumbles and falls into the abyss.

* * *

“Gentle… don’t wake her.”

Olwen blinks, then blinks again. The world is hazy above her, but her vision doesn’t sharpen, no matter how much she tries to work away the blurriness. She tries to speak. Her voice is nothing but a rasp. “Ronan…”

Nanna lingers over her. Even painted in the bleary, fading colors of Olwen’s eyesight, she can see the redness under her eyes, the exhaustion. Still, she smiles. “He’s alive and unharmed.” Then she casts a judgmental glance at another person in the tent. “I told you not to wake her.”

A quiet, gentle reply. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I thought I was going to die,” Olwen says quietly, because she can’t think of anything else. Should she thank Nanna? Is she grateful for her life being spared? Is she angry? When she reaches into the place where emotions should be, all she finds is the persistent pain of her injuries. Exhaustion sits deep in her bones.

The second person comes into her line of sight, dark eyes and a worried set to her mouth: Mareeta. “You nearly did.”

“The sword was poisoned,” Nanna says. The space under her eyes is grey and red, and when she reaches out to brush her fingers across Olwen’s forehead, they’re scuffed, splinters buried in her skin. “We healed your ribs most of the way, but we didn’t have antivenom on hand. The poison is going to have to get through your system on its own.”

No antivenom, a chest full of broken ribs, and they had wasted resources on her anyway. It was doomed from the start and they had gone against fate. They had still kept her alive. She could have done something good, died for the sake of someone else, and yet here she was still. A viscous anger stirs in her chest. “Why did you have to do this to me?”

Nanna’s eyes go wide, and she steps back. Mareeta gives Olwen an incredulous look. “What?”

She can already taste the regret she’ll feel later, but the anger doesn’t care; it just wants to be expelled. “Don’t you get it? I should have died there! I was protecting someone good— maybe if I’d died for him I could have been forgiven!” It’s an utterly selfish way of framing it. In that moment, all she was concerned with was Ronan’s safety; she had just wanted to stop the world from taking another good person away. “You want good things for the world, don’t you? Why can’t you just let me die and be _done_ with it!”

Their faces blur together. Olwen’s head spins. Nanna chokes back a sob.

“Go,” Mareeta says to her gently. “I’ll talk to her, okay? Go find Leif and tell him she’s conscious.” When Nanna is out of the tent, she turns her gaze to Olwen, and it is utterly steely, a far cry from the gentleness of the night before. 

“She’s been working on you for _hours_ ,” Mareeta says, the anger in her tone unwieldy, disappointed more than incensed. “When Safy tried to come in and take over for her, she made her go away because she thought you wouldn’t like to be under the care of someone you didn’t know. She’s _sixteen,_ Olwen. She’s barely out of childhood. This is the first time she’s seen injuries this bad, and she took it upon herself to do it alone just because she cares for you. This is how you repay her?” She stands in a swift motion. “Your anger at the world isn’t something that _she_ should have to bear. She’s an innocent in this."

“So I harmed an innocent— Condemn me, then!” Olwen snaps at her, rage mixing with terrible remorse. Her eyes are swimming with the effects of the poison. “Damn me to my nightmares! Leave me behind! Treat me like the monster that I am— give me what I deserve!”

Mareeta’s eyes burn for a moment more, and then the fire flickers out. “You will not goad me into punishing you.” Her hands find Olwen’s jaw, forcing it to loosen, letting some of the tension out of her. “You want what you deserve? I’ll give it to you.”

Her lips press against Olwen’s forehead, dry and chapped and steadfast. It hurts more than anything else she could have done.

When she pulls away, something hot wells up behind Olwen’s eyes and comes down her cheek. Mareeta wipes it away. “Nanna can’t be angry with anyone,” she says, her voice uneven, “so I’ll have to be angry with you for a while instead.”

A heavy anguish blooms in Olwen’s chest, worse than all of her fractured ribs. She can’t offer a response. An apology would be forced; a plea for her not to go would be selfish.

She bows her head silently. The tent flap swishes closed.

She turns her hands over in her lap and stares at them, imagining they’re red, until the exhaustion takes her under.

* * *

This time, her dreams paint something different.

The night sky stretches above her, a brilliant, wide ribbon of stars. She is small next to the frozen, silver pines, sharp and so tall that they pierce the clouds.

There is a heavy presence around her. Thick smoke swirls around her bare feet.

A voice: “And what is death to the dire?”

Olwen turns. There are two white stars like eyes in the smoke, so bright they burn her eyes when she looks at them.

The voice is low, coming from everywhere at once. “What is grief to thunder? Does electricity weep for its fallen kin? To lash and break— the rain does this, but not when the sun still shines on it.”

A flash of gilded light in the distance. Olwen whips around. The stars in the sky have disappeared, but the smoke’s eyes burn even brighter in the pitch dark.

“The storm is a blessing, child, but all things must come to an end. Crops only rise when the rain recedes, even if they need to be watered to grow. Thunder is written in you, but hold it too close and the stars will never find what lies beneath.”

It grows softer. One star cleaves the world in two, and slams into the ground, sending shockwaves through the earth.

“You hold to that which harms you most. If you are the storm, then sing. If you are the cloud, then herald. And if you are human… then heal.”

The smoke dissipates, rising into the pine needles, and the voice gives one last whisper. “All the lights in the sky wait for you."

* * *

There is only a brief respite between the end of the battle for the castle and the beginning of the battle against what lies inside. By the time Olwen wakes up, all that precious time has passed.

It’s a harsh awakening. Horses pound across the ground, Leif calls out orders, weapons clang and equipment shuffles around from person to person. Olwen makes a move to get up when she hears it, but her ribs immediately stop her in her tracks.

Nanna is by her side, looking slightly less exhausted, the redness under her eyes turned pink. “You’re not fit for the field yet,” she says quietly. She won’t meet Olwen’s eyes, and she’s a good distance away from her, as though she’s afraid.

The things Olwen said come back to her, and she winces. Nanna _is_ afraid. Nanna is afraid _of her._ She can’t summon any words to patch it over, but she needs to. Her voice fails.

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Nanna wipes her eyes. She’s been crying again. Olwen’s heart sinks deep into her gut. Of course she’s crying. She’s stuck at the side of someone who has been nothing but terrible to her, and the prince is off in the battle.

Nanna tries to keep her composure. Olwen would admire that if it didn’t make her chest feel like it was caving in; no matter what she has committed, no matter the trauma she has been under, Nanna should not have to feel this way. Her eyes are too kind to be anything but protected. When her words finally swim back to the surface, they do not form an apology. “He is going to live.”

Nanna looks at her plaintively. “How do you know?”

 _Because the world isn’t that cruel,_ she wants to say, except that it is; she has seen so much death at the hands of war. The world is cruel enough to take anything, even a wide-eyed boy who’s only fighting for the right thing. She won’t offer platitudes. “Because he has an army,” she says instead. “They will protect him. Everyone out there would die for him.”

Would die for him. _Will_ die for him— Nausea congeals in her stomach, a frozen, syrupy terror. Mareeta left with the soldiers. What if she dies before they ever speak again? As much as she tries to shove the thoughts back where they came from, the image persists. Mareeta would die for Leif. She’d die for Tanya. She’s noble enough that she might even be willing to die for Olwen.

Olwen hates the thought of it.

Nanna’s hand intertwines with Olwen’s, and the thoughts hesitate as her broken ribs threaten to break again. “No one is going to die,” Nanna says, voice trembling but resolute.

She wants it to be true. She wants to believe that, even though war is violent and terrible, the faith in Nanna’s voice will bring everyone back whole. She can’t believe it. She’s seen too much to believe it. Still, her voice rises in an echo, pleading to a world that will never care. “No one is going to die.”

Nanna squeezes her hand.

A moment passes like that, in sacred silence.

Eventually, Olwen has to break it, if only because the guilt of Nanna’s infinite compassion is becoming impossible to bear. “I said terrible things to you.” It’s not an apology. An apology is… trite, compared to the way Nanna had looked, her wide-eyed shock, her tears.

Nanna shakes her head. “No— I… it wasn’t…” She trails off under Olwen’s exacting stare.

“Don’t,” Olwen says, more harshly than she had meant to. “Don’t deny that you’re hurt. It will only make healing more difficult.”

“But I forgave you,” Nanna offers hesitantly.

“I never apologized. Let me make amends to you, and _then_ you can forgive me,” Olwen says. “Ask something of me, Nanna. Anything you wish, so that I can be forgiven properly.”

Nanna looks at her cautiously, but when she finally asks, her voice faint, it is not another refusal. “...Could you… tell me about something beautiful?” She blushes after asking. “I know it’s silly, but… I feel like…”

“Like everything beautiful has been stamped out,” Olwen replies. She knows the feeling all too well.

Nanna nods silently.

Somehow, when she tries to think of something beautiful, all she comes up with is— well, it’s Mareeta. Her voice. The way she laughs. The firm draw of her eyebrows, the near-imperceptible bump on her nose from a long-healed break, her toughened, calloused hands. Her unyielding compassion and the generosity of her aegis.

Olwen’s mouth dries up. She stays quiet for longer than she means to.

“The coasts of Friege,” she finds herself saying eventually. “On a sunny day, you could see a thousand miles, standing on one of its cliffs. At night, you could see the whole sky in the water. Every star.”

She wishes she could give Nanna more poetry, but Nanna seems content, closing her eyes and smiling, wistful. “When the war is over, I want to see that.”

“You will.” She has no basis to promise that, but she does anyway, because Nanna deserves all of that and more. 

“Can I forgive you now?”

Olwen laughs.

* * *

Olwen isn’t sure if it’s the power of good company or the power of the Heal staff, but by the time the soldiers are back, she is capable of standing to greet them, Nanna by her side. The girl’s eyes are bright with fear and anticipation both, clearly looking for her prince among the crowds.

He arrives last in the line, weary but safe. He always comes in last. His armor is white and gold, glowing under the setting sun, the Light Brand shining in its scabbard, and for a moment Olwen understands why Nanna can believe in him so deeply.

Nanna doesn’t waste a second. Shyness forgotten, she runs to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders as he holds her close, lifting her off the ground.

Olwen smiles.

“They’ll make a good ruling couple,” says the presence at her side.

Olwen flinches, twisting sharply to look at her new companion. She’s not sure she expected anyone else, but it still lets a cool wash of relief over her body to see that Mareeta came back. She’s whole, not wounded in the least. Maybe Nanna spoke this into being, or maybe it can be attributed to the elegant swordwork of a myrmidon; however it happened, Olwen is grateful. “I’m sorry,” is the first thing she says.

Mareeta shakes her head, not looking at Olwen. She watches Nanna inspect Leif with the understated, powerful affection an elder sister might have; it sends a swell of warmth through Olwen’s chest. “Don’t be. She’s already forgiven you, and… I don’t have time to be angry with my friends. Not now.”

Olwen’s breath stops coming, the world stuttering around her with the shock of the words, her heart giving a fragile pulse. “...We’re friends?”

Mareeta links their arms together, leaning gingerly into Olwen’s good shoulder. Olwen can feel her smile despite not seeing it. Mareeta’s eyes are still trained on Leif and Nanna. “Of course we are,” she responds simply.

She can’t think of what to say. To thank her would be strange, wouldn’t it? Yet still, this gift she’s offered is beyond anything Olwen could have expected. She’s been accepted. She’s been given a place that isn’t in Friege.

For a moment, she thinks that home could come to have a new meaning.

“Good,” is what she settles on.

They stand there for a moment in companionable quiet, and when Mareeta speaks again, she sounds painfully raw. “We’re going to rescue my mother.”

Olwen hesitates. Mareeta’s voice is strained. “Is that not a good thing?”

Mareeta finally looks at Olwen. Her breath comes rough, her eyes damp and fraught. “I thought it would be, but…”

Olwen wraps her arm around Mareeta’s shoulders, feeling the shiver run through her. To grieve is agony in and of itself; no matter if it was for nothing, no matter if Eyvel lives, the blade cuts the same. And beyond that, she knows the story. Facing the object of her shame will likely be an ordeal, to say the least.

“It would be easier if she were gone forever,” Mareeta murmurs. “Am I terrible for saying that?”

At least Olwen never has to look in her brother’s face again. She turns Mareeta toward her, hands settling on her shoulders, and shakes her head. “No. It isn’t terrible to be afraid.”

Mareeta sighs, some of the tension lifting from her, and pulls Olwen into a loose embrace, head resting on her chest. It feels good to have her close. It’s affirming, that she can be this close to another without them fearing her. “Will you be with me?” she asks softly. “When we wake her, I mean.”

She’d be with her forever if it were allowed. Mareeta is beautiful in the way good things are— and alarming, too, like the eye of a wolf or the iridescent shimmer of snakehide. She’s as powerful as she is gentle, as lovely as she is formidable, and Olwen admires both sides. More than that, she is salvation, she is forgiveness, she is the same pain reflected. She is a friend.

She cannot voice those words, so she just chooses one. “Yes.”

* * *

The stars shine brightly that night, and Olwen takes watch.

It seems darker around these places. Raydrik’s presence makes everything seem darker, even if he is only present in vestiges. She cannot see the moon, but the stars, as if in the dream she’d had, watch over her with a thousand glittering eyes.

She expects to be alone. Then again, she has also learned to expect disruption in this strange company.

“May I join you?”

She nods.

Ronan comes to stand beside her. “I meant to thank you earlier,” he says, not wasting time on small talk. He is not the sort to dwell on something meaningless; she respects that about him. His presence is quiet, but purposeful, speaking when there is something to be said. “Are you doing better?”

Her hand traces the fading line of the gouge on her shoulder. “It will be a few weeks before my ribs are fully healed, but I have been told I am fit to serve again.”

It’s an optimistic answer, but his brow furrows despite it, eyes turning to the ground in something she recognizes. He is guilty. For what? For the sacrifice she had willingly made? For being in the line of fire to begin with? “I only wish you had not been hurt at all.”

“It was worth it,” she responds, more short than she means to be. “You have nothing to be guilty for. I chose to bear the consequences of doing what I did.” She doesn’t want to speak the words _protecting,_ or _saving,_ in regards to her action. It would paint her as a hero. She only did what any other would have; she deserves no praise. 

“You saved my life, Olwen.” She can feel Ronan’s eyes on her, but she can’t meet them. “I owe you my deepest gratitude.”

Olwen shakes her head. “I was only paying back a debt.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then he sighs. “You never had a debt to me. What I did for you that night— it was nothing. It was what anyone would have done.”

“Anyone would have done what I did, too,” she returns. She tries not to sound cold, but his assumption of her goodness cuts deep. Comforting a murderer is a kinder action than saving a good person; the thought is as simple as it is stinging.

“You _saved my life,_ ” Ronan repeats, more firmly. “That is no trifle.”

She dips her head, finally glancing at him. It feels more vulnerable than she would like. When the truth finally escapes her, the words take her insides out with them, leaving her hollow. “You saved my life a little that night, too.”

He pauses for a minute with that. Then, he takes her hand. “Then forget about debts,” he says, looking her straight on with a sincerity that makes her heart ache. “If you saved me, and I saved you— let’s just call each other friends.”

To deny him would be cruel. She cannot be cruel, even if she is a killer. Not to him. He is too good for this. “Friends,” she echoes, a smile tugging at her despite herself. “That makes sense.”

The quiet of the night returns, but it isn’t as dark as it was, and she feels far from lonely.

* * *

It is with a hesitant confidence that they approach the dark place where Eyvel is held.

Every child of Fiana stands next to each other, fire in their eyes at the proposition of finally freeing the mother of their village. Tanya worries at her bow until Osian tells her she’ll get splinters, which sparks a passionate argument between them, which in turn Halvan— Osian’s more composed brother— has to break up. Leif tries to look like less of a child than he is, standing at the front of the lines with his blade in hand. Nanna remains, as ever, at his side.

Mareeta is the only one of them who hangs apart from the others. She stays back, hovering next to Olwen, not sure where to look or what to do. She grips the hilt of her sword as though it’s all that anchors her. Her knuckles are white.

To raise your blade against your kin and for them to live— for them to look upon you once again, knowing that you tried to kill them— what a curse it will be. Olwen has begun to steer her thoughts away from the ever-present phantom of her brother, but she imagines it now. If he had lived. If they had seen each other once again.

It would be an agony beyond description.

Leif calls the order, and his troops surge forward.

It would be easy for Olwen to lose herself in the fight. She doesn’t have Chestnut to ground her, nor is she in a precarious position; she is thunder and death on the field, letting the magic eat her alive, but right now there is something more important. She cannot lose focus. She barely takes her eyes off of Mareeta.

She protects her companion with everything she has. It’s the first time they’ve really fought together; Olwen knew that Mareeta was a talented warrior, but to see her in action is something else entirely. She has a snakelike fluidity to her movement, striking swift and true, the harmony between her and her blade a monument to years of training. 

For a moment, Olwen knows how Reinhardt felt. She is sure that, if it meant Mareeta’s safety, she would throw herself before another sword, as he would have for Ishtar. Does it run in their blood, this devotion? Or did each of them simply find the person who meant their salvation by chance?

A cry. Two flashes of light from a distance. Everything goes quiet as the battle draws to an end. One of the mages lights the torches in the innards of the temple with a stave, and flickering orange light comes forth. Olwen’s boots are spattered with blood. Next to her, Mareeta has fared worse. The blood has sprayed all the way from her hands to her face, and a vicious, frenzied look dwells in her eyes, her breath rough and deep.

Olwen takes off her cloak. Slowly, not making any sudden movements, she eases closer to Mareeta, gently putting her hand on the side of her face and wiping away the blood with the fabric. It doesn’t get all of it.

Mareeta takes a shuddering breath. Her eyes become clearer. “I lost myself for a moment,” she murmurs. Her voice is trembling.

“It’s easy to do,” Olwen responds. Her hand lingers. “You’re not hurt?”

“I don’t think so.” Mareeta looks her over. “What about you?”

Olwen doesn’t get a chance to respond. A shout of victory comes from one of the rooms in the temple, and a thick, wooden door slams open. Every eye on the field looks to the sound.

“She’s back,” Leif says, alight with joy. “She’s back!”

“Come on, now, Little Nan, that’s enough of that,” an unfamiliar woman says to Nanna, who’s clinging to her and sobbing openly. “Easy, there. You’ll get a headache.”

“Eyvel!” Tanya rushes forward, leaping onto the woman’s back to hug her. Osian is right on her heels, pulling all three people into a massive embrace. Halvan just smiles wide and punches his brother on the arm.

Eyvel laughs. “Now you’ve all gone and made heroes of yourselves, huh? You’ll have to fill me in.”

It’s clear. The way they cling to her, the way she smiles at them, the softness shared— this is the mother of all of Fiana’s children, blood or not.

Tanya struggles free of Osian’s bear hug, peering out into the troops. “Where’s Mar?”

Mareeta takes one step toward the gathering, a ghost of a smile coming over her face. Eyvel looks at her. Eyes meet eyes.

Olwen has never seen a human being shatter the way Mareeta does then.

It’s almost audible, the crack of her heart breaking again. She turns into Olwen’s shoulder, her whole body shaking. Olwen grasps her tightly, not caring that the pressure makes her ribs flare up in pain, only caring for the wetness that begins to seep through, the harsh sound of Mareeta trying to get enough breath. 

She wraps the cloak around her, shielding her from the others’ eyes. Useless, she whispers the same words that Nanna did all those weeks ago: “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Mareeta sobs into her.

Slowly but surely, Eyvel approaches them, pushing easily through the tide of other troops. “Mareeta,” she says gently, laying a hand on her daughter’s back. Then, firmer: “Mareeta. That’s enough.”

As if a child again, Mareeta turns hesitantly to face the woman, face reddened.

“Don’t you blame yourself for what happened,” Eyvel says. She has eyes that are sharp, cutting right to the quick of the situation. “There’s not a thing in the world I could hold against you.”

“I tried to kill you,” Mareeta says weakly. She pushes back another sob. “Mother, I— I could have killed you. It was… It’s my fault you were…”

Eyvel pinches her cheek. “It was _Raydrik’s_ fault, and no one else’s,” she says, a rock-solid certainty in her voice that could convince anyone. “Now come here.” She opens her arms, and it takes only a moment for Mareeta to cave.

Mareeta holds onto her mother like she’s afraid she’ll disappear if she lets go. The rest of the Fiana children, with Finn behind them like a shepherd, come to join the two of them. It’s like looking at the sun. The light, the joy in them, it’s dazzling.

_I’m proud of you._

It bites. It stings, like it always does, like it always will. Olwen begins to turn away when Eyvel catches her eye. “And who are you?” she asks, not unkindly.

Mareeta pulls back, grasping Olwen’s hand and bringing her closer. “This is my friend Olwen,” she says, smiling at her with so much light it’s impossible not to smile back.

“Well, then,” Eyvel says after a moment of inspecting her. “Welcome to the family.”

Nanna bounds over, hugging Olwen from the side, radiating joy. “You’re one of us now! Eyvel says so!”

Olwen’s never seen her this animated. She can’t stop herself from laughing softly, extending a hand to shake Eyvel’s. “I am glad to meet you.”

Eyvel grips her hand with a strength very similar to Mareeta’s.

Family. Maybe the idea isn’t so strange.

* * *

The final battle comes and goes. 

It isn’t until they sweep through the castle, until the mages destroy the temple to Loptous underground, that the idea of victory becomes not a goal but a reality.

It’s over.

Their fight is over.

The sense of relief is like a stone off of Olwen’s shoulders. It’s over. Thracia is free. Justice has been done at long last. Her head spins with it. It’s maddening, this ecstasy. She doesn’t know where to put it. There is nothing but light and air in her chest, threatening to lift her off the ground.

Leif raises the flag of the Liberation Army over the castle, its colors vibrant against the gold of the rising sun. A new day begins; a new era begins. Olwen kneels to him. Everyone else does, too. He is the prince of Leonster, the liberator of Thracia, the leader of his own army and the rightful king.

Olwen isn’t part of his inner circle, so she doesn’t linger. She ends up trying to clean up the castle, which is surprisingly intact despite the many battles they’ve waged, next to Ronan, who is a lot better at it than she is.

“It will take time to get things in order,” Ronan says, brushing the dust off of a long table in a forgotten dining room. “After that, I’ll go home to my mother.”

The future has been so uncertain for so long that hearing of it, of a mythic land where the war is over— a mythic land they now live in— sends a shock through Olwen’s spine. “You’re leaving?”

Ronan laughs. He’s more subdued, but it’s clear that the victory has had its effect on him too. “I’m just a villager,” he responds. “I know there’s some grand war on the horizon, but I’m not a hero. My home is safe. My fight is over.” He looks at her, smiling softly. “I won’t forget you, Olwen. You’ll always have a place in Iz, if you want it.”

The offer sets her heart in her throat, and she has to get the words out around it. “Thank you.”

She’s going to miss this. She’s going to miss him, and Nanna, and even the people she only knows peripherally— Tanya and Osian and Leif. There is grief to be had in all endings.

“Do you know where you’ll go?” Ronan asks.

Olwen mulls it over. She’s never had a plan for herself, other than to serve her superiors, and then to destroy them. “I don’t. I don’t have a home anymore, and my family is dead.”

Ronan doesn’t startle. He must be used to these sorts of shocks. War habituates you to them. “Mother would like you,” he responds simply. “She always liked to read about magic. To meet an actual mage… she’d fall all over you.”

Olwen laughs dryly. “I would be useless around a house. All I know how to do is fight.”

“You can learn.” He’s steady. He’s unrelenting. “I mean it. You have a place in my home.”

She remains silent.

“Or you could go to Fiana,” Ronan continues. “It’s a small town, but there’s always space for one more. I’ve been a few times on hunting trips.” When she still doesn’t respond, he briefly touches her shoulder. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

“I don’t know how not to be,” she returns quietly, looking sidelong at him. Then, more tentatively, she adds, “May I write to you?”

“Of course,” Ronan says easily, smiling. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“We are,” she confirms. It’s a little bit silly, but it makes her feel better. 

There’s a thunder of footsteps overhead. With the panicked swiftness of a soldier, Olwen gets to the main room as fast as she can, heart pounding, Ronan just behind her. 

It’s not a threat. The threats are gone. What greets them instead is a sight of pure joy: Leif holds Nanna in his arms, spinning her around with a strength that he shouldn’t have. “We’re going to get married!” Nanna sings, her smile pure sunlight.

Leif seems to sober when he realizes all his troops are in the same room, and he puts Nanna down gently to stand up beside him. “Liberators of Thracia,” he says brightly, the glee in his voice not fully gone, “we have claimed a great victory today.”

A wave of cheers.

“My journey is not over,” he adds, “but for many of you, this is the end. You have earned every right to go home, or seek new futures. You have done Thracia a great service, and you deserve to celebrate it. The castle can lodge you until you are ready to depart.” When he smiles, it is the proud, brilliant smile of a king, one that could— and has— led armies to victory. “Thracia will never forget you. And neither will I. You will be the guests of honor at my coronation, whenever that day comes.”

Another cheer.

“Go forth, and know that you have saved the world from Loptous!” Leif says, raising an arm. “And good fortune to you all.”

It feels more and more like an ending. The ground seems to shift underneath Olwen, sending her into a future she doesn’t know how to face.

Ronan nudges her. "I think someone's looking for you."

She looks up, and a familiar pair of sharp brown eyes find her. Mareeta smiles softly and tilts her head in question.

"Go on," Ronan urges. "I'll see you again before I leave."

"Promise me," she says.

He chuckles. "I promise."

Olwen makes her way across the floor, where Mareeta stands alone. "You’re not with Leif,” she observes rather stupidly.

Mareeta smiles, leaning against the wall, eyes trained on Leif. There’s a melancholic cast to her mouth, her brows worried. “He’s leaving with Nanna. They’re going with Prince Seliph to continue the fight.”

Olwen’s heart stutters. If both Leif and Nanna are going, then— “You’re going, too,” she says. Her voice is bare. She can’t summon much enthusiasm for the idea of seeing her off to another war. “Aren’t you?”

Mareeta’s gaze locks with hers, and she shakes her head distantly. She is far-off. “No. I’m not.”

Relief is the first thing she feels, followed quickly by a wave of confusion. Mareeta is the elder sister of Fiana the same way that Eyvel is its mother, and Olwen has seen firsthand the way she treasures Leif and Nanna. It’s not like her to let them just _go._ She can’t comb words out of her thoughts, so she stays silent, mouth parted in question.

“I’m not…” Mareeta sighs. “I can’t see combat again, not until I’m stronger. I know Mother forgave me, but I… I don’t know if I can forgive myself just yet, and I don’t want to risk others by fighting before I’m stable. I think I’ll travel for a time. I’ll help who I can without being on the front lines. But I’ll miss them,” she adds in a softer, sadder voice. “And I’ll miss you.”

It comes to her suddenly, the solution to the problem of the future— but maybe it’s always been there, in her newfound devotion, in the way she fit into this place. “No, you won’t,” Olwen responds slowly. The words carry her heart with them. “Mareeta, I don’t want to be without you again.”

Mareeta takes a moment. Her grim expression lifts hopefully, edging on a smile. Olwen’s heart soars. “What are you saying?”

“I would like to come with you,” Olwen says, taking her hand. Their fingers intertwine, comfort and safety, slotted together like this is the end of a journey. The cool of the room in the early morning is driven away by the warmth that blooms between them, the sweet unfurling of a new beginning, a new life to live in a new Thracia. “If you’ll have me.”

The words are barely spoken when Mareeta answers her, smiling like the dawn shined on the flag that morning. “Yes. Of course I will.”

Perhaps she has lost everything. Perhaps her brother is gone, and Fred is gone, and her place in the world is gone with them. And yet despite it all— here she stands.

Here she stands, past the end of everything she’s known, with a warmth that can only be called  _ home. _

**Author's Note:**

> part ii will be a lot happier so stick with me lmao


End file.
